


Ribbons

by terribad



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Crossdressing, F/M, Humor, Lantur, Parody, Satire, Strings - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terribad/pseuds/terribad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A loving, Mad Magazine-esque satire of "Strings" by Lantur.  :)  Originally written in September 2012 on Tumblr, uploaded here for archival purposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ribbons

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Strings](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/31253) by Lantur. 



When Tarrlok wakes up, he finds his world upside-down.

Literally.

His head aches, he’s dizzy, and it feels like he’s been clobbered over the head by an enraged gorilla-goat and slung over the beast’s massive, hairy shoulder. And for all intents and purposes, he actually _is_ currently being carried and slung over the shoulder of some ridiculous, muscular beast. “Wh… What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving Republic City,” a familiar voice responds, not bothering to stop to answer Tarrlok as he bounces like a sack of potatoes. “I’m starting a new life with you as my hostage.”

“Oh.” Tarrlok hazily blinks, his vision making out the blurry edge of a fur trim. “…Okay.”

Why did this all sound so familiar?

The last thing he remembers seeing is Avatar Korra punching her way into his cell on Air Temple Island after shoving that bland, red-scarfed street boy down the flight of stairs that led them to him. Why Tenzin had a prison cell in his home was beyond Tarrlok; perhaps it was installed by Lin during those halcyon days of what was probably the most brutal and sexually aggressive courtship Republic City’s ever seen. He’s pretty sure Korra punched him in the face when she was breaking him out, and come to think of it, he’s vaguely aware even now of the dull, stinging ache around his right eye that was presently swollen shut. “…Where are we going?”

“Somewhere nobody’ll ever find us,” Korra replies, stopping outside and throwing him over the back of an actual hairy beast that smelled suspiciously like a dog.

“The petting zoo?” Tarrlok asks, a faint look of hopefulness etched on his otherwise defeated face.

Korra arches an eyebrow at him, shaking her head. “No, dumbass. We’re not going to the petting zoo.”

“Oh.” Tarrlok’s heart sinks as he sags dejectedly over Naga’s back. “That’s fine, I didn’t want to go to the petting zoo anyway.”

Korra vaults over Naga’s back, and the polar bear-dog starts purposefully charging through the smoldering streets. She’s only granted a few fleeting moments of silence, likely from Tarrlok trying not to succumb to motion sickness as he’s staring at the smears of asphalt as they make their way towards the outskirts of the city, before he starts again with the questions.

“Are we going camping?”  
“No.”

“Are we going to Ember Island?”

“No.”

“Are we going to the beach?”  
“No.”

“Did you catch Amon?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you catch Amon before leaving Republic City?”  
“He’s not my problem anymore,” Korra scowls, urging Naga to run faster. “Stop asking me stupid questions.”

“…Okay.” He quiets again until they finally make it to the snowy mountain road that should be familiar to him by now. “…Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Fucking positive,” Korra growls through clenched teeth, stopping her mount to look around the landscape. Tarrlok opens his mouth to speak again, holding up a finger as he begins to explain the holes in her plan before a fist swings down to clock him on the side of his head.

He blacks out again.

It’s unbearably cold when he wakes up, and he finds himself slouched against something hard and metallic and _cramped_. His knees are against his chest and he’s shivering, his breath clouding in front of his mouth. It doesn’t take long for him to register that he’s been stripped down to his underwear as he feels the skin of his back stuck to the frosty steel wall of a curiously convenient metal box in a frozen basement.

Tarrlok experiences some major deja vu.

“Korra?” He calls out, shakily getting to his feet as he peeks through the tiny, slatted window on the door of the box. He sees her sitting on an old wooden chair across from him, legs crossed and a hand resting casually on a heavy-looking leather pack. “Korra, I’m cold. Can I have my clothes back?”

“I brought you some better clothes,” she remarks, looking at the pack and gently patting it. “Some that are more suited for a person like you.”

“Better clothes?” Tarrlok parrots, shivering as he grips the bars of his tiny cell and watches as Korra starts to unpack. He almost jumps back when he realizes what she’s taking out, for the moment preferring to be stuck wearing only his boxers in a miserable metal container than to wear— “Korra, those are _women’s_ clothes. You can’t possibly think I’d fit into those, can you?”

“Don’t worry, they’re not mine,” Korra grins viciously, holding up what appeared to be a modern parody of a Water Tribe dress that was dyed in some ghastly shade of teal. “Asami and I went shopping before we left. Though I guess ‘looting’ would be the more correct term…”

“I’m not wearing that. You could have picked a better color! Like black, black goes with everything. Or even powder blue, I know they make women’s clothing in powder blue—”

“Are you seriously objecting to the color of your women’s clothing, as opposed to the fact that I’m trying to make you, a man, wear women’s clothing?” Korra squashes the dress down in her lap in disbelief.

“Excuse me for having taste,” Tarrlok rolls his eyes.

Korra snorts. “So you can either freeze or put on the dress. It’s your choice,” she offers. “I’ll even give you matching panties for the upskirts.”

“I’ll freeze before wearing teal,” he says with bitterness dripping from every word. He drops to the floor again, huddling into a tight fetal position as he shivers against himself. Although he may be cold, this is nothing like the biting, hypothermia-inducing cold that permeated the air at the North Pole. It was more uncomfortable than remotely life-threatening, really. He could go like this for hours.

Well, at least until stupid biology had to get in the way. He only lasts a few hours stewing in angry silence before his body starts to nag at him.

“Korra, can you let me out? I need to go to the little councilman’s room.”

She laughs in response to him. “Only if you wear the dress.”

“I’m not wearing the dress!” Tarrlok petulantly shoots back, crossing his arms and scowling even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “Just let me out, I promise I’ll go right back into the box when I’m done.”

“No way! You’ll just try to escape! Just go in the corner or something,” Korra sneers.

“Is this because I left you in here overnight? Look, I’m sorry, okay? Or give me a water bottle or something so I don’t… get it all over the floor. You can’t really be that hung up on making me wear a dress, can you?”

“Do you have to ask?” Korra gets up and strides across the basement floor, the offending garment draped over her shoulder as she stands on her toes to peer inside Tarrlok’s cell. “And why do you have a weird metal box in the basement of a cabin in the middle of nowhere, anyway?”

“Look, I— I was in some weird relationships, okay? If you had a dress in a less abhorrent color, I’d wear it! But please let me out before I—”

Luckily for Tarrlok, Korra isn’t nearly as sadistic of a lover as Chief Beifong. She unlocks the cell with a long-suffering sigh, feeling secondhand embarrassment for having to watch a grown man hop from foot to foot in a ludicrous potty dance before he brushes past her and hauls ass up the stairs, loudly slamming the bathroom door and throwing the toilet seat up so hard that its clattering against the porcelain echoes throughout the entire house.

Korra could have lived her entire life without having to hear the long, drawn out sound of Tarrlok urinating on the floor above her, as the house was old and poorly insulated so every awkward little sound could be heard. He flushes but doesn’t wash his hands (not that Korra would expect him to), and before long creaking footsteps lead to the man timidly walking back down the basement steps with a coy grin and a blush as he daintily tiptoes past her and back into the cell.

“Did you change your mind about the dress?” Korra asks, shutting the door behind him.

“No. Honestly, it would’ve been hotter if you told me you weren’t going to let me out at all until I put it on or you let me piss myself and THEN offered me a change of clothes which I would have no choice but to accept,” he suggests, trying to come off as helpful in a way that annoyed the Avatar greatly.

“Are you serious?” Korra’s not sure whether or not she should start laughing, or if she should punch the metal box so hard it falls over simply to shake the man up. “You could have told me that BEFORE I let you out, you rotten weasel-snake.”

Tarrlok only shrugs nonchalantly, feeling as though he’s the one truly in control here. Korra had no experience in handling men, from what he could tell, given that she was a total pushover at what could have been a golden opportunity for humiliation at his expense. “I was just throwing some ideas at you,” he says, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “In the hopes that I’d _inspire_ you on your little hostage adventure.”

“I’m sure you’re an expert,” Korra sneers, briefly standing back on her toes to make sure Tarrlok is watching her. She’s past the point of caring as she takes a few steps back, disrobing in front of the small window of his cell. Tarrlok is, of course, intrigued by watching her naked form stripping before him, gazing at her bare bottom swaying back and forth as she stoops over the pack and brings out even more familiar clothes – his clothes. At least, they _were_ his clothes.

Korra slips into them with little effort, even though his clothes are a little big on her. He squints suspiciously, narrowing his eyes as her hands clumsily fasten the buttons up the front of his tunic. “Be careful, you’ll break them off if you’re too rough!”

“Shut up, Warlock.”

“…Warlock? Wh— my name’s Tarrlok, where did you get—”

“You’re now my wife and your name is Warlock. You need to start dressing and acting the part,” Korra says, adjusting her new clothes, “And you also need to start addressing me as your husband, Korba. These will be our new identities for our new lives.”

“Are you serious? …You’re serious, aren’t you,” Tarrlok sputters in disbelief. “You could have at _least_ picked convincing-sounding fake names that don’t even remotely sound like ours!”

“Warlock’s not a real name, who’s going to guess it’s you? Especially if you’re wearing a dress and being my wife.”

“I only wear dresses in good colors and you know that,” he pouts. “And changing consonants in our names doesn’t make for good aliases. You’re terrible at this hostage thing!”

“Look, Tarrcock, I know you’re an expert at this kidnapping thing but if you don’t stop bitching at me about it I’m going to pound your ass into the dirt and turn you into a rug!”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” He sighs, exasperated as he leans his bare back against the metal wall of his happy fun box. “If I wear the dress, will you stop saying stupid things like that?”

Korra hums in consideration, shrugging and unlocking the door to hand Tarrlok the offending garment. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Put it on and I won’t make you a rug.”

“That’s absolutely the most reassuring thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” he says, rolling his eyes as he pulls the dress over his head. As expected, it was a little tight around the shoulders and hugged his gut uncomfortably close, looking absolutely unflattering once it was fully over his body. He gives Korra the dirtiest look, defensively crossing his arms and pouting like no living man should ever be able to pout. “Are you happy now?”

“You’re missing something,” she says, looking him over before reaching for a small pouch and pulling out what appeared to be a betrothal necklace at first glance—

“Korra.” Tarrlok bites his lower lip, disgust etched on his face on first sight of the damn thing. “That’s a bottle cap with a smiley face drawn on it.”

“It was the best I could do on such a short notice, okay?” She reaches up to put it around his throat as he continued to grimace at her; the man apparently had no shortage of exaggerated expressions to make at her. Was this some kind of game of pretend? “I spent like maybe five minutes on it, I promise I’ll make you a better one or something soon, whenever we go… somewhere… cool.”

“'Somewhere cool.'” Tarrlok tugs the hem of his dress down, shaking his head. There was just no way he'd get over how terrible this thing looked on him, or how whoever designed this monstrosity thought that wretched shade of turquoise would look good on anybody. “I guess that rules out hiding out in the Fire Nation, then? I'm glad for that, the humidity does dreadful things to my hair.”

“—Oh yeah, speaking of your hair!” Korra pipes up, causing Tarrlok to wince. “We should make it into something a little more girly. You know, to make us look a little less like some couple of a really tiny dude and his ugly mannish wife.”

“Gee, thanks.” He gathers up his ponytails in a hand, clenching a fist around them in a vain attempt to protect them from Korra’s dangerous, hair-destroying claws. “The more you talk about this plan of yours, the more convinced I am it’s going to work. But really, the only person that should be touching my hair is _me._ ”

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt it too much… I’m just going to add some ribbons to make it cuter!” Because Korra hadn’t already shown Tarrlok how good she was at accessorizing, she produces a long strand of garish red ribbon out of her pocket and ties his ponytails into a big, sloppy bow. He thanks the spirits under his breath that she does no further damage, and especially thankful that she doesn’t try to undo his meticulous work to achieve the look she wants. Clearly, she should have done more than just go shopping with the Sato girl.

As Korra took a step back to assess the damage, Tarrlok could only bite his tongue for so long as he glanced at his reflection in a frosted-over window. Only two words came to mind: Absolutely dreadful. “You wouldn’t know cute if it came up to you and bit you in the face, Avatar.”

“Yeah, you definitely need a lot of work. But we gotta get going, I just wanted to make you feel like a jerk for putting me in that box before we really set out.”

“Your sentiment has been noted. Do you even know where we’re going?”

Korra shakes her head. “Nope.”

“Really?” Tarrlok is utterly unsurprised.

“Yep.” She gives him an affirmative nod.

“We’re screwed.”


End file.
